Can I get an analysis of the play Away by Michael Gow?

Michael Gow's play is set in 1967. It is the end of the
year. The place is  Australia. The suburbs of Sydney and the New South Wales beaches are
the prominent locations. Throughout the play, the characters react to the personal
consequences upon their lives caused by the social changes and issues that produced the
conflicts that compel them to act as they do.

In the 1960s, Australia,
like every other Western country, was hit hard by the social and military upheavals of
the decade. Australia was overtly pro-American Vietnam involvement. Some Australians
took up the counter-culture protests against the war along with the representatives of
the antiwar movements in all other countries. The division this caused in Australia was
the same as in America and elsewhere in the West.

Australia was
involved in Vietnam for a decade ending in 1972. During this time, 500 Australian
military personnel lost their lives and 3,000 were wounded. In comparison to American
casualties, this figure is modest, but to the personnel and families directly affected
by these numbers, they were anything but modest. The effects of this social conflict is
one of the greatest themes in Away. Other themes are the sexual
revolution, brought about by the introduction of birth control pills; waning Christian
beliefs in the wake of the aftermath of two world wars; and changing values and
lifestyles resulting from newly emergent economic prosperity and consumerism coupled
with a surge of European immigrants.

Away is
written in five acts in the style of a Shakespearean play. In fact, Gow employs
significant allusion to Shakespeare's plays, namely King Lear, A Midsummer
Night's Dream, and The Tempest. According to Valerie
Sutherland (see link), Act One present the orientation; Acts Two and Three, the
conflict, with the climax coming at the end of Act Three; Act Four, with a brief portion
of Act Five, presents the resolution; and Act Five "rounds out themes and returns to the
familiar school setting of the opening scene" (pg. 17).

Other themes
include going away and (the ultimate going away) death, a theme which is pointed to by
Tom’s opening line in Act One, Scene Two: “You going away tomorrow?” At one point, Coral
asks whether or not it is “better for them to die like that? Looking like gods?" Another
is the tightly related theme of reconciliation, as families and individuals must come to
grips with the effects of social conflicts. Along with Australians' newly emerging
social values, attitudes, and beliefs, another theme is emotional baggage. This has a
powerful physical symbol in the physical baggage that the families take with them on
their holiday vacations.